Mushrooms are considered of cold and damp nature and for this reason
have the force of poison....It is allowed in cooking, when it pleases the
gluttonous, to use certain recipes. They have to be cooked with that juicy
part of the stalk by which they cling to the earth, first in water with
bread crumbs and then with pears and the shoots and stems of pears. Some
put in garlic, which is thought to counteract poisons. Boiled and salted,
they are fried in oil or fat. When fried they are covered with a green
sauce which is called sauce or with garlic sauce. Some even cook then with
the skin removed or with the upper cap filled with salt and oil, upside
down on the coals, and eat them sprinkled with pepper or cinnamon. Cooked
any way you want, even though they satisfy the palate, they are considered
the very worst, for they are difficult to digest and generate destructive
humors. (Milham, 409)

Pine kernels are drawn from pine nuts, which hold resin when they
are separated, and when eaten in food generate the best of humours, settle
thirst, take away the imbalance of humors of the stomach and purge the
urine. (Milham, 177)

Modern recipe: Mushrooms and Fungi

For 160

40 pounds whole mushrooms, washed and dried

1 1/4 quarts olive oil

80 cloves of garlic, minced finely

salt and pepper to taste

1 7/8 quarts fresh parsley, finely chopped with stems removed

1 7/8 quarts cup pine nuts, toasted

For 8

2 pounds whole mushrooms, washed and dried

1/4 cup olive oil

4 clovesof garlic, minced finely

salt and pepper to taste

3/8 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped with stems removed

3/8 cup pine nuts, toasted

Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan and set them aside. Preheat your oven
to 400 degrees F. Wash and dry the mushrooms carefully, then carve, peel,
or score them as you wish for decoration. Place the mushrooms in a baking
pan, season with salt and pepper, add chopped garlic, and toss with oil.
Bake until the mushroom sizzle lightly and are hot throughout, roughly
25 minutes. When the mushrooms are done, toss them with chopped parsley
and sprinkle with reserved pine nuts.

Parboiled and then fried was one popular method of cooking mushrooms
and fungi, baked or roasted caps filled with oil and pepper or cinnamon
was another. Regardless of the cooking method, it seems that there is little
to recommend their consumption, despite the fact that they taste good.
Platina hints at other methods of cooking mushrooms, but any way will produce
destructive elements and destroy the delicate balance of a meal unless
otherwise combatted.

Fortunately, Platina gives cooks the information they need to combat
the ill humours throughout his text. Within the mushroom recipe he suggests
that garlic is said to counteract poisons. Within the remainder of his
text, there are many other items said to "counteract poisons" and
still more items said to "generate the very best of humors." Finding
a comfortable and tasty mix of these items would have been the challenge
of the cook.

Because there is no clear recipe from Platina that appears to do
the body good, we will combine elements to produce a dish that appears
to balance humors through the use of the ingredients. Platina's description
of pine nuts suggests their outstanding qualities may provide suitable
balance to the ill humours of mushrooms.

Cooking methods and varietal choices:

Roasting will concentrate a mushroom's flavor in a way unlike any
other cooking method. The mushrooms we used were plain, white mushrooms.
Consider some of the meatier mushrooms such as Crimini (the immature caps
of Portobelo mushrooms) or Portobelo if you have them available, as they
hold up even better to oven roasting.

Garnishing and serving:

We chose to clean the mushrooms and make carved crosscuts in the
tops of them, serving them whole. As they roasted in the oven, the mushrooms
expanded and cooked in interesting patterns, with the crosscuts causing
them to blossom slightly. Many books exist today detailing possible food
garnishing techniques for mushrooms. Consider consulting one of them to
enhance the appearance of this dish, perhaps even turning it into a mini
subtlety. Alternatively, you may wish to serve the mushrooms cut into 1/3
slices if they are a meaty variety such as Crimini.

Gaylin Walli is a technical writer and editor for a multinational
software company. She spends the vast majority of her personal time researching
things because her friends (and people throughout the known world) torture
her with comments like
"Do you know anything about..."